ALF fighters, illustrative image, By: Hawar News Agency (ANHA)
At least ten Turkish-backed militants were killed on August 29 when Kurdish fighters raided their position near the town of al-Dghlbash in the Euphrates Shield (ES) region in northern Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
Sources in the ES region said that the militants were members of the Sultan Murad Division and the Hamza Division. Both groups are members of the so-called National Syrian Army (NSA), which was founded two years ago.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, so far. However, opposition and even Kurdish sources said that the Afrin Liberation Forces (ALF) were behind the successful raid.
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ALF fighters are known to carry out such raids in the southern part of the area of Afrin and the ES region on a regular basis.
Despite the heavy losses inflicted on its proxies, the Turkish military didn’t intervene to stop the ALF’s raid, nor took any action to respond to it.
The islamist losses are increasing in size. If this escalation continues successfully, ALF will start to dominate the Afrin and ES countryside by night and maybe even at some points by day. This is a classic guerilla strategy and if it happens, kurds will gain the region at some point.
And everyone thinks the SAA and ALF don’t cooperate, but the ALF operate out of SAA controlled territory where actually live, they don’t actually live in Turkish occupied territory, and they also continually successfully evade joint Russian and Turkish patrols in the area to make their attacks, and then the Turks fire their artillery into SAA held areas to punish them. If that’s not cooperation I don’t know what is, and I don’t think it’s just a coincidence both the SAA and the ALF have ramped up hostilities against Turkish interests over the last 4 months.
There is some truth that. ALF dips out of the 4 to 8k fighters the YPG evacuated from Afrin. So all those ALF and YPG fighters there are Afrinis. And refugees. It is known that YPG left some troops in the hills and forests of Afrin, to form the nucleus of guerilla warfare. Likely kurds from Afrin city joined also. Recruiting is also taking place in the refugee camps and local mixed kurd and arab population. So there is a potential pool of some 15 to 20 k fighters locally. A force very motivated but, for the time being, lightly armed.
The SDF is losing a lot it’s most seasoned fighter to the ALF, they’re deserting the SDF and heading straight to SAA held Aleppo, and they’re helping their brothers and sisters in the west reclaim their homes. And if you read Kurdish news like I do, you’ll also read about them joining the self defence units in SDF held territory, as well as also joining the ALF as I just mentioned, but also disbelievingly and even more incredulously, you’ll also read that some of them are even heading to Idlib to join the SAA, and that they’ve actually already made a deal with Assad to help retake Idlib, but that’s only if you believe unnamed but supposedly reliable sources, and I do occasionally. I haven’t heard about Arabs joining the ALF but it would make sense if they did, after all they both either want Erdogan out of Syria or their homes back, and sometimes they want both, so it stands to reason they should be cooperating together, and it also stands to reason Assad should be cooperating with them too, and that’s exactly what the Kurdish news sources tell us they’re doing, that’s if you believe unnamed but supposedly reliable sources, and I do in this instance.
And when they finish attacking Turkish interests and have to run and hide, they head south to SAA controlled territory for refuge. And funnily enough, the Russian joint patrols with Turkey that are supposed to stop them doing it, never ever seem to be able to stop them, LOL, maybe the ALF have current inside information to help them to allude all those joint patrols, LOL.